Interpretive panel at the San Jose Airport


Every now and again I do random adventures in science writing like this interpretive panel now on display just outside of the San Jose Airport. The text is mine, the images are, sadly, not.

TEDX: Chronic Pain – Shedding the Second Dark Age


Published: September 26, 2017

Chronic Pain: Shedding the Second Dark Age

Bay Trail Interpretive Panel


An interpretive panel I helped conceive with Cathy Reinhard of NatureGraphic Interpretive Design. Somewhere on the Peninsula near Redwood City.

PBS NewsHour: The placebo effect’s role in healing, explained

for PBS NewsHour

Published: April 11, 2018

I traveled with a film crew to Huatla, Mexico, and Baltimore, Maryland, to understand the intersection of science, faith and healing.

Erik Vance scrutinizes a battle over dolphin rights

for The Open Notebook
Published: November 2011

Reporting from the trenches in the war over dolphin rights, freelance science writer Erik Vance relates the story of Lori Marino and Diana Reiss, dolphin researchers who have spent most of their careers as close colleagues and friends

Just the Towhee of Us

for California
Published: Summer 2006

In 2006 I interviewed an expert in back yard love songs. Take a walk in the Bay Area hill s and listen for a very unusual type of duet.

Natural Habitat: Erik Vance

for The Open Notebook
Published: October 2012

To see the slideshow, click here.
In our “Natural Habitat” series, we invite science writers to share their working spaces — offices, spare bedrooms, coffee shops, hammocks — and the accoutrements that help them do their best work. (If you’d like to nominate your office to be featured at Natural Habitat, let …

The human cost of cocaine

for Mornings with Nicole Dyer (Australia)
Published: February 2015

Conversation about the cultural costs of cocaine use. Click below or visit the website. Start at 7:40